Anchors and Grenades
by alanabloom
Summary: "Alana still believes what she said this morning; there's something so permanent and irrevocable about the word broken, like it's a final state, an end point. So, no, even after tonight, Alana does think Will is broken...but he is quite possibly breaking. And that terrifies her." Will/Alana, kiss aftermath.


**A/N:** Post-1x08. Kiss aftermath.

Anchors and Grenades

The biting cold of night air hits her as soon as she steps out the door, but Alana's already shivering. Her calm, measured steps become instantly erratic as she half jogs, half stumbles to her car. She lifts her fingers unconsciously to her lips, still swollen and tingling and tasting of him.

Alana ducks into her car and slams the door behind her, but she doesn't drive right away. Her eyes dart past Will's house, to the field where they'd hiked around, looking for a wounded animal. Was it just this morning he'd called her to come over and asked why she hadn't thought it was a date? That she'd told Will he wasn't broken?

She'd seen it in his face, the moment they both realized there had been no animal in Will's chimney, even though less than an hour before he'd been certain enough to hammer away at brick. Alana still believes what she said this morning; there's something so permanent and irrevocable about the word _broken_, like it's a final state, an end point. So, no, even after tonight, Alana doesn't think Will is broken...but he is quite possibly breaking. And that terrifies her.

Will kissed her like he was drowning and she was a life raft, but he's got her all wrong. She cannot save him, can't keep him afloat. She lives in her head and has yet to learn the trick of quieting her own mind and Will - far too used to being the object of scrutiny and analysis - would know what she was doing, and he'd grow to hate her for it. He would expect her to fix him, but resent her for picking him apart. No, Alana Bloom is not a life raft; she is an anchor, and she would only drag him down at a time he's already flailing to keep his head above water.

These are things Alana knows. Yet as she finally buckles her seatbelt and puts her car into drive, the thing she doesn't understand is why it was so hard to walk away from him.

~(*)~

The day after the kiss, Alana is distracted all day by thoughts of Will. _Concern_ for Will. In the course of a night, she has resolved to give him his space, for at least a week or so, barring any professional obligations that may throw them together. But this resolution comes with difficulties; though the kiss is high on her list of thoughts, vying for its spot is the image of the gaping hole in Will's wall, and the look on his face when he realized (or maybe just saw her realizing) that there had never been anything there.

Alana can't help but worry about him, and God knows no one else is. Especially not Jack Crawford; Alana knows he has Will working the murder that turned a body into a human instrument, and she tries (and fails) to keep her mind off it all day.

Several times, she debates going to Hannibal to discuss her concerns, but always decides against it. It's murky territory; she can never get a straight answer from either man on whether Will is technically Hannibal's _patient_. And in any case, she's uncomfortable discussing Will in any way that seems professional or academic. She's his friend...his _concerned_ friend, but that's all.

_I'm not your patient._

Will had said that last night, after kissing her for a second time, but Alana had said it first. She has always been very clear on that point, always put in an effort to make sure their relationship is personal, that they're friends, that Jack Crawford can't ask her to evaluate or study Will.

He isn't her patient. So really, this is her own fault.

There is a reason she kissed him back - _twice_. There is a reason that part of her desperately wished she _could_ have shut off her brain last night and stayed there, wished she could have allowed herself that mistake.

Will Graham is not her patient. Her feelings toward him are personal.

Alana made sure of that.

~(*)~

Two days after the kiss, her resolution to stay away nearly cracks in half. She hears early in the day about the conclusion of Will's case: two officers shot dead, the murderer eventually dead in Hannibal's office.

Alana knows, objectively, that she would have heard if something had happened to Will, and yet she still spends the first fifteen minutes of a scheduled class locked in her office, trying to get Jack Crawford on the phone so he can confirm that Will's okay.

Just the news that he'd been attacked, however briefly, nearly sends her straight to the Academy. As it is, she sits at her desk for a good five minutes after hanging up with Jack, waiting for her hands to stop shaking before she goes to the lecture hall.

_Don't let him get too close._

She's demanded that of Jack from the beginning, and he didn't listen; but that's fitting, because Alana, too, failed to take her own advice. _She_ is the one who got too close. She cares too much about Will; she's too invested.

It's true that Alana cannot save Will, that she can't be the one to fix him. But that doesn't mean she doesn't wish she could.

~(*)~

Three days after the kiss, Alana guest lectures at the Academy, and afterwards she goes to see Will.

He's sitting at the table in his empty lecture room, his eyes open but disconcertingly blank. He doesn't react to her entrance.

A knot of fear that's becoming far too familiar tightens somewhere in her chest, and Alana tentatively approaches the table, forcing a steady, calm tone. "Will?"

It takes three times before Will snaps back into himself, blinking confusedly. For a second, he stares at her like he isn't quite sure she's really there. In the next instant his gaze slits habitually away. "Oh. Hi."

"Hi." She sees him flushing before he ducks his head, but Alana plows on determinedly. "I heard about what happened the other night. With, uh. Tobias?" Alana waits for Will to answer, but he's pretending to shuffle some files on the table in front of him. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine." The response is automatic, though his distracting movements immediately still at the question. After a beat of silence, Will mutters, "You should check on Hannibal, he was the one who got attacked."

"I'm checking on you," Alana says in a measured voice. "Jack said you're lucky you weren't killed."

No response. After a moment, Alana tightens her jaw, marginally annoyed now. Damn it, she had to _work_ to earn Will's friendship, his trust. She wasn't throwing it away that easily. "Listen. If you need to talk about what happened...between us, we can do that-"

Will's head snaps up, then, and for just a second his gaze settles on hers. "I'd rather not...talk too much about it. If it's okay with you, I'll just apologize now and we can forget it ever happened."

"You don't have to apologize."

"Yes, I do." He stands up, finally, moving around the table and taking a few steps closer to her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you. And I shouldn't have asked you to come help me that morning." At that, Alana frowns, confused, but before she can ask for clarification, Will continues in a pained, halting voice. "You...said I wouldn't be good for you. You were right. I'm not good for anyone. I'm not even sure I'm good for me." He gives a short, humorless laugh, his face tightening in a childlike mask of anguish. "I'm a ticking time bomb. I'm a...I'm a grenade, and the pin's coming out, and I shouldn't put you anywhere near the explosion."

"Oh, Will..." Her eyes soften, the edges of her words falling away, and Alana has to check the urge to reach out and touch him. "I don't think that."

"But it's true," he says, eyes fierce and self-flagellating. "I am...unstable. I don't trust my own mind, and that means I don't trust..._myself_."

Alana stares at him for a moment, her eyes wide, her throat tight. She feels many things for and about Will Graham, but one of the truest is that he breaks her heart.

She reads between the lines of his words, trying to grasp what it must be like to constantly imagine violence and murder and evil, how thin the line must seem between Will's reality and his imagination, how he would associate his slipping mental state with the psychopaths whose minds he enters.

Alana takes a step closer to him, and this time she doesn't stop herself from reaching up and wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck. She wishes she could explain to Will how she sees him, paint a picture of the impossible gentleness he displays with his dogs, the earnestness of his desire to save a wounded animal if anything could be done, the way she's always thought he looks a little silly and out of place holding a gun, like a little boy playing cops and robbers - though she can't even imagine him being the type of little boy to love the game.

Instead, she simply says, her voice holding a note of quiet, fierce conviction, "I am _not_ afraid of you hurting me, Will. I'm more worried about...hurting you." She pauses, then amends, "Or at least, about pissing you off and making you hate me."

He's gone still under her touch, and Will's voice is low, almost intimate, when he answers, "I couldn't hate you."

His thumb grazes her cheekbone, and Alana closes her eyes, her brain fighting to maintain control. Only three days later, and she's broken her resolution, and now they're right back in it. Alana can feel it, how worn the strings holding her back are becoming, how easily she could fall into this, how hard she could fall for him. There's an almost pleading note in her voice as she murmurs, "Will..."

"But we're already friends," he reasons. "Good friends and...you don't analyze me now." Her eyes fly open and she makes a face, and Will adds, "Not outwardly, anyway. You never play mind games on me. You don't treat me like some...case study."

"It's more than that." His forehead is against hers, and they're so close that their words fall on each other's lips. "Will, you think I can save you, but I...I can't..." A phrase floats into her head, something she told Will about Abigail Hobbs, and she whispers, "I can't be your everything."

He lets out a broken, trembling sigh, and before the last string of her control breaks, Alana puts her arms around him, moving her forehead from against his and resting her chin on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she says, fast and soft in his ear.

It takes a second, but then Will hugs her back, clinging tightly the way one does to a life raft, and Alana presses her face into his shoulder and wishes she could be that for him. That she could keep him from slipping into dark, treacherous waters.

But Alana Bloom is not a life raft. She is an anchor. A relationship with her would only pull Will down faster. She cannot save him; he has to save himself.

Will threads his fingers through her hair, his touch soft and gentle, and Alana remembers something else about anchors.

Anchors do serve a purpose. They stop boats from drifting. They aren't so bad, really, as long whatever clings to them is already safely above water.


End file.
